


Intergalactic Marriage Counselling

by Nitrobot



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Addiction, Arguing, Established Relationship, F/M, Strained Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-15 02:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It was like watching some grim re-enactment of a Kolkular sitcom, with the laughtrack replaced by the deafening beat of Rung's spark pounding in his audios. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When faced with marriage troubles, of course the easiest thing to do is mechnap the nearest psychiatrist (aka, Rung finally has some use).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intergalactic Marriage Counselling

"Well, he's stopped whimpering. I think we're starting to get somewhere."

Rung dared to slit open one optic, luckily the one whose lenses weren't cracked into pieces, warily letting it adjust to the light pouring down from the open sky. Tarn was right in front of him; back turned, not looking at him, thank Primus, but only making him more aware of the bombshell remnant surroundings and the stasis cuffs chafing against his wrists. He'd been treated with the same caution a Phase Sixer prisoner would have been given- considering Tarn's illustrious career even before forming the DJD, he'd probably had first hand experience of what Decepticon war criminals earned when they got caught. 

With nothing to do but struggle and chew in panic at the panel crudely welded over his mouth, Rung could only resign himself to listening to his captors and praying they weren't discussing how best to pry his spark out.

"Nickel, this isn't going to work unless we both co-operate-"

"Go co-operate your optics with a rusty screwdriver." The second voice was a femme that he couldn't see while glued to his chair, clearly pissed off and clearly more dangerous than Tarn, if she could get away with speaking like that.

Massive tire-tread shoulders fell from a sigh before Tarn turned around, giving Rung a weary look that didn't suit his permanently energon stained expression and hiding whoever his companion was from view. "As you can see, she's quite imaginative," he said, as if he was showing her off in front of friends. If he noticed the burns on the Autobot's wrists from pulling against the cuffs, he had enough mercy to not mention so. Instead he went with the much more painful choice of tearing the panel-gag off, and while Rung hissed from the stinging all around his mouth he admitted with some embarrassment; "We've been bonded for thirty stellar cycles now, and... recently we find ourselves faced with some difficulties."

Rung wasn't sure what surprised him more; that any Decepticon was even capable of bonding, or that one was willing to admit when it inevitably went wrong. He resisted the urge to wring his hands together, lest he char his plating even more and make himself purge from the smell. "I-I'm... sorry to hear that, but..." Through his stinging lips his own voice sounded alien, cracked with fear and almost overtaken by static. "I'm not a relationship c-couns... I don't know-"

Tarn's optics widended only slightly, one servo dipping behind his back. "Oh, excuse me." As he turned to extend the reach of his rummaging servos, Rung thought he saw the shape of a femme even smaller than him, perched on a pile of rubble that brought her just up to the height of Tarn's waist. The precarious evening sunlight of the interrogation world only just started to glint against teal armour when Tarn half-filled his vision again, burying something into the charcoal sand between them. "I know how this works... your type always have a time limit for sessions."

Rung squinted his working optic, struggling to see even with his lens. Whatever it was looked very similar to a grenade...

With a timer showed ten klicks until detontation. 

"Why didn't you just stick him on Kaon and fry his processor until an answer pops out?" The femme voice had returned with a vengeance, its source leaving her perch with a soft thud and marching over to Tarn's legs as much as furiously as wheeled peds could manage. "Just like you _always_ do." Servos crossed over her chestplates, antennae flicking and helm gauge twitching dangerously close to red, Rung couldn't help but picture her as the result of Ratchet having one too many drinks with a K-class femme. That was a mental image for when he wasn't in danger of becoming a crater, though. 

Tarn flinched on a molecular scale at her anger being so close now. He brought his knees down into the sand, kneeling as close to optic-level as possible. "Nickel, you know perfectly well that our relationship is no business of our associates." 

"Yet you have no problem sharing it with the first Autobot dumb enough to get captured?" Nickel pointedly huffed, twirling her wheels to get her back facing them both. Tarn bowed his helm, sighing with enough force to kick up dust around his vents. 

"Do you dislike my methods?"

"I _dislike_ having to clean up after every chassis you strip bare because you get bored," Nickel answered, still refusing to turn around. Only nine and half klicks were left on the timer. If she was as stubborn as she looked, Rung would have plenty of time to roll himself out of the grenade's blast radius if he could just get out of the chair... 

"I tell you time and time again, I leave you the chassis' because you told me you like making decorations out of them!" Tarn argued, spreading his servos out. It was like watching some grim re-enactment of a Kolkular sitcom, with the laughtrack replaced by the deafening beat of Rung's spark pounding in his audios. 

Nickel's own growl of frustration joined the musical score. "That's only with _Seeker_ frames, and they always fly away before your huge aft can catch up with them!" 

"...I try my best," Tarn said gently, so soft and so _Autobot_ that Rung actually had to pause his escape to process it. He'd heard of love, the fusing of sparks changing bots, but it was a shaky field of study even before the war. This could be the first evidence of spark bonds altering personalities; the Decepticon's iconic boogeymech turned as meek as a service drone just from the words of a femme less than half his size. 

It would make a fascinating report if he could live long enough to write it, with just over eight klicks and counting left. 

For once Nickel found herself without a snappy reminder of her mate's faults, antennae starting to droop. Rung could practically see her wavering pout before it dawned on him, along with a stubby servo pointing accusingly right at Tarn. 

"And I suppose your T Cog addiction is just a part of 'trying your best' I have to put up with?"

If the atmosphere was apocalyptic before, now it was turning to a nuclear winter. "Nickel. Please don't." Tarn spoke through a frosted vocaliser, thick and gravelly with ice chips.

Nickel melted them with a blazing glare. "Don't act like you're ashamed Tarn, I bet even _he_ knows about it!" She turned her servo onto Rung while he was halfway through wringing his peds through the more mundane ties around his legs. Luckily for him, Tarn seemed too pre-occupied with his spark storming in circles to notice. 

"It's common knowledge to everyone and their damn grandcarrier! Just shout it from the starscrapers; you, Megatron's junkie lapdog and me, the glorified housekeeper, doomed together for the rest of our fragging lives!" Her antennae practically hanging down her helm, Nickel kept her glare brimming with rage and the first tears of coolant. "Do you know what it's like, having to cut burned T Cog parts out of you every vorn? Seeing you and your _associates_ leave without so much as a goodbye and coming back expecting me to patch you up and send you right back out again?" There was a remorse, a deep rooted guilt that Rung often spent stellar cycles trying to dig out of his patients. He was almost glad for his slow progress of retreat, this rare glance behind the Decepticon's faceless war machine. If he didn't survive the look, he'd at least die knowing he saw something worth it. 

"That isn't what I signed up for, Tarn." Nickel gladly filled the silence that Tarn laid out for them, unable to speak while consumed with something that his mask served well to hide. "I joined the DJD because I care about you, and I knew at least one of you would end up dead in a vorn without me. I knew I'd be dealing with a troupe of sparklings back then, but..." Rung glanced away, down to his crudely freed legs and over the grenade- five klicks left- missing Nickel's rapid-fire transition between rage and teal tear-stained sorrow. "When I bonded with you, you promised me something different. We both promised to put each other first, no matter what. All you've done in the name of _us_ has been for yourself." Her limp hands became fists, balled with more surfacing fury, and they suddenly lashed out against Tarn's leg plates. "If you're going to be a selfish aft, at least be honest about it!"

Tarn let her pound away at her will, letting her decide when she was done. The timer read three klicks down when her volleys finally slowed down, eventually stopped by Tarn's gentle digits holding her hands. "Do I need to tell you how right you are?" he asked, making her weep all over again. The tire treads of his back faced Rung again, prompting him to go into hyperdrive with his fleeing efforts while he had the privacy. All he achieved was tipping his chair over with a grunt that was only barely covered by the couple's crying. 

"I'll fix this, Nickel," Tarn pledged, holding her in the nest of his servos. "I'll fix us. You deserve at least that much." 

"I just want you to try, Tarn. That's all I ask." 

Rung stretched his neck upwards, a painful upside down view of the timer telling him he had two klicks of life remaining. He rolled himself over onto his front just as Tarn's ped slammed down next to him, his facade smirking as he leaned down.

"I don't know what you did, but it worked." The impressed tone actually managed to sound genuine riding on the tide of other emotions. "Perhaps you Autobots have some use after all." He roughly clapped Rung's back through the chair, rising to his peds, pulling stasis cuff keys out of his subspace...

No, not keys. A trinket that very deceptively looked like keys while face down in the dust. "A shame your brethren will never be reassured of that," Tarn remarked with a subtle shake of his helm, kicking up another plume of dust right into Rung's face. Blinded, he could only hear Nickel's distant delight at whatever make-up present she received, and by the time his optic cleared he was left with just one klick to go.


End file.
